Queensland Police want online dating sites to shoulder the blame for lonely Australians being ripped off by internet scammers. They say agencies must ramp up warnings and reminders about the dangers of being conned by a fake lover or face the consequences.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: They call it romance fraud, and it costs lonely Australians tens of millions of dollars a year.

Internet dating sites have turned into a happy hunting ground for unscrupulous people who want to exploit the lovelorn for money. That's where research shows the majority of victims meet their fake lovers.

The wooing can go on for months before the key part of the con trick: convincing the victim to send cash.

Police say online dating sites are partly to blame because they're not issuing the right warnings or reminders about the dangers.

Stephanie Smail reports.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Romance fraud has grown exponentially in Australia over the past several years. So has the popularity of online dating sites. Some companies like RSVP are publishing information to help people protect themselves from romance fraud.*

JOHN AIKEN (online video): Hi. I'm John Aiken, RSVP's dating and relationship expert, and I'm going to give you some tips on safety and security when it comes to online dating.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: RSVP has a "dating safely" icon on its homepage and customers can click through and read safety and security tips as well as hypothetical scenarios to help people identify would-be scammers.*

JOHN AIKEN (online video): Never give away money or any of your financial details to someone you've just met online. It's too risky and you don't know them well enough.

BRIAN HAY: There should be greater responsibility put on their shoulders to look after their clients. They are facilitating some great relationships that give permanency and love and comfort in people's lives, but they also are facilitating thousands of relationships that are nefarious, that are toxic and that are going to lead to people's emotional and financial demise.

And I think there is a responsibility there to step up to the plate, put the issue onto the table, right into the face of people, so they are better educated and prepared when they go to that environment.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Dr Jacqueline Drew is from Griffith University's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She's been researching the warning information available about romance scams to check if it's working. She accepts online dating sites do issue warnings, but thinks they should go further.

JACQUELINE DREW: Some of the sites do better than others and I think there probably still is some way to go in terms of making it more detailed and specific to warn people and maybe the number of messages, so people being reminded.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Australian Competition and Consumer Commission figures showed Australians lost $23 million to romance scams in 2012. But many embarrassed victims don't report the crime, and Brian Hay estimates the figure is closer to $90 million.

Some online dating agencies have been reluctant to join the fight against romance fraud, according to Brian Hay.

BRIAN HAY: In the main, from my sort of position here in Queensland, in the main I've not found them to be very cooperative. I think they see me and the police effort as sometimes as being a little bit of a nuisance value. On the other side of the coin, some have been very co-operative and take it very seriously and have been great partners in some of the things we've tried to do.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Jacqueline Drew sees changes to privacy laws as a solution, to make it easier for dating agencies to report suspicious people or transactions to police. She says existing privacy laws restrict them from giving personal information to police.

JACQUELINE DREW: In some ways their hands are tied also, because they're not able to share information as freely as perhaps they even want to with policing agencies to identify where the monetary transfers are from a victim as well as a potential offender perspective.

So being able to have sort of more information sharing would allow those agencies to work better together.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: But Brian Hay says privacy laws are used as an excuse not to part with commercial information.

BRIAN HAY: Most of the privacy legislation that's out there doesn't extend to the realm of criminal conduct. So once criminal conduct has been crossed, the privacy legislation doesn't apply and it can be handed over to police and authorities so remedial action can take place.

But too often it's used an excuse why they can't do anything and that wasn't the intent of privacy legislation. It's there to protect the rights of individuals. In that, it's been abused by criminal elements. That's not what it's there for.

*EDITOR'S NOTE (17 October 2013): We've amended the transcript to clarify RSVP does publish information to help customers protect themselves from romance fraud and provides hypothetical examples to help people identify dating scams.